HERE is good news for online shoppers looking for collective purchases: Singapore Press Holdings' online classifieds website ST701 has launched an online spree shopping service in collaboration with comGateway.

The service developed by the two parties can be found at http://shops.st701.com/spree.

Online spreeing is a collective shopping method in which groups of consumers, through platforms such as forums and blogs, come together to make bulk purchases from similar online merchants. By combining their purchases, the base handling and shipping charge is shared, thus saving on costs.

By collaborating with comGateway, a provider of online shopping services, ST701 aims to raise the bar for online spree. comGateway furnishes a secure payment gateway through which users can effect online payments. No longer would people need to exchange sensitive personal information such as bank account numbers to transfer money, nor would they need to travel to some pre-arranged location to collect their merchandise.

According to ST701 and comGateway, more than 60 per cent of US merchants do not accept foreign credit cards, and the majority do not ship outside the country. Now, users of the spree service will have access to some 600 merchants in the United States.

Elsie Chua, executive vice-president of SPH's CATS Classified, said: 'There are many product lines in the USA that are not available locally. Yet we know that there are consumers who are keen on brands like Target, Old Navy, Victoria's Secret and others.'

Danny Lim, founder and chairman of comGateway, said: 'Including merchants from other parts of the world, especially Europe, would be the next phase of development in the spree service.'

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